Adam C. Ford is a thoughtful tactician and an indefatigable fighter who represents individuals and corporations engaged in high-stakes civil and criminal litigation, as well as regulatory investigations and enforcement actions.
Ford has extensive experience representing defendants in both state and federal courts in every aspect of white collar prosecutions and regulatory enforcement actions from investigation through appeal and has handled major matters involving allegations of securities, wire, mail, and accounting fraud, money laundering, FCPA and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) violations, insider trading, cherry-picking, pump and dump schemes, obstruction of justice, false statements, food and drug misbranding, and tax offenses, among others.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2026 | White Collar, Investigations, Complex Commercial Disputes |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2025 | White Collar, Investigations, Complex Commercial Disputes |
Select Engagements:
• Represents CEO of a large oil and gas corporation in a civil forfeiture action seeking to recover a $300 million dollar asset that was wrongfully seized by the Department of Justice.
• Represents a well-known celebrity day trader in criminal indictment alleging involvement in a $114 million dollar stock manipulation scheme scheduled for trial in October 2023.
• Represents former Mozambique Minister of Finance indicted on bribery and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges in the Southern District of New York.
• Obtained vacatur by Second Circuit Court of Appeals of more than $7 million disgorgement award against CEO of public company accused by SEC of misappropriation of funds raised through private offerings
• Represents a Washington D.C. think tank in connection with allegations of violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act.
• Represents a large bank sued by a survivor of a terrorist act alleging violation of the Antiterrorism Act.
• Represents CEO of public company in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil litigation involving allegations of a $27 million pump-and-dump scheme.
• Represents a CEO of Bahamian broker-dealer in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission litigation involving allegations that he violated SEC anti-solicitation laws in connection with his ownership of the broker-dealer, scheduled for trial in the fall of 2023.
• Represents a stockbroker in a SEC civil case which alleges he engaged in multiple fraudulent schemes to "pump and dump" thinly-traded microcap issuers.
• Three civil litigations alleging violations of the short-swing profit rule in Section 16(b) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.
• Represents plaintiffs, victims, and survivors of the August 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut (the Beirut Blast) against a U.S.-Norwegian company that as alleged in the complaint is responsible for bringing the ammonium nitrate to the port as part of a bribery scheme with members of Hezbollah.
• Represents a doctor in a defamation case against a hospital whose false allegations resulted in the doctor being indicted for 25 counts of murder, for which he was ultimately acquitted.
•Represents investors in early-stage digital asset company in a civil litigation to recover hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency assets.